


It’s a Heartbreaking Way to Know (Oh And I Wish I Didn’t Want To)

by layalee



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 2x06, 2x06 missing scene, Angst, Babbling, Difficult Decisions, F/M, Feels, Felicity's feelings, Heartache, Isabel Rochev is the worst, POV Felicity Smoak, Sad, Season 2, Sorry Not Sorry, The Russia Incident, Why Oliver why, inner thoughts, olicity - Freeform, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/layalee/pseuds/layalee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following episode 2x06, Felicity contemplates her feelings towards Oliver and comes to a decision about what to do regarding him. Readers should be warned: click this link and be faced with angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s a Heartbreaking Way to Know (Oh And I Wish I Didn’t Want To)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Alright, so this is a short one-shot about Felicity's feelings after 2x06 (yes, THAT episode). It could be counted as a missing scene, but it's not necessarily set directly after 2x06. 
> 
> I hope you like it! Let me know what you think. Food may feed my stomach but comments feed my soul ;)
> 
> Arrow (sadly) belongs to the CW and DC Comics. Characters belong to them - I'm just borrowing them. I might not give them back though.

 

Felicity wasn’t sure, before this moment, what her feelings for Oliver Queen were exactly. She knew she cared about him – he was her friend, after all. But she didn’t know how deep that caring went. Not until this moment.

***

When Felicity raised her fist to knock on Oliver’s hotel room door that evening in the Russian hotel, her thoughts were all about Diggle and their plan. She ran scenario over scenario in her head, trying to prepare for whichever outcome they’d have to face.

But then Oliver pulled open the door before her fist had a chance to connect with it and all thoughts about Diggle flew from her head as she saw Isabel Rochev – mean, condescending Isabel who always made her feel inferior – and Felicity’s heart ached.

And that was the moment she knew. She didn’t just care about Oliver, she _cared_ about him. Yes, with emphasis. These feelings she was unsure of what to make of them… They were crystal clear now. Because accompanying the feeling of heartache was intense betrayal, and why would Felicity feel the latter unless she cared about Oliver Queen as more than a friend?

So her self-preservation kicked in and she tried to save face by brushing it off, telling Oliver that what happened in Russia stayed in Russia.

But it didn’t stay in Russia.

The feeling of heartache followed her all the way back to Starling City.

***

Upon returning home after that exhausting trip, Felicity laid in bed for a long while. She didn’t toss and turn; she merely gazed up at her bedroom ceiling and contemplated the events of the past few days.

_Because of the life that I lead, I just think that it’s better to not… be with someone I could **really** care about. _

Turning on her side, Felicity buried her face into her pillow and gave out an involuntary sob. She usually prided herself on staying strong, but tonight… Tonight her heart had taken a beating, and she needed to shed a few tears.

It was a very long night.

***

The first time Felicity saw Isabel after the Russia incident, the look the latter flashed her took her right back to that hotel room, and all those nasty feelings rushed back up to overtake her. Felicity barely made it to a bathroom stall in time to empty the contents of her stomach.

That was the first time Felicity had ever left work early.

***

The first time Oliver touched her shoulder after telling her he couldn’t be with someone he could really care about, she flinched.

The hurt look that crossed Oliver’s face haunted her for a week.

***

After a while, Felicity went back to normal. She shoved her feelings for her boss and partner into a box and stuffed it into the back of her head. She didn’t need feelings clouding their mission or getting in the way of things. She was a mature adult and she would handle the situation as such.

That didn’t stop her from fantasizing about a future she would never have.

***

Felicity was a babbler. Everyone knew that. Hell, she even used the word _babble_ the first time she met Oliver Queen. She babbled about a lot, many of her rambles embarrassing her.

Felicity babbled about Oliver’s body and liking watching him on the salmon ladder. She babbled and made awkward innuendos – like the time she told him it felt good having him inside her. She babbled and sometimes revealed too much about herself, more than she was comfortable with.

Felicity couldn’t control her babbling – though not for a lack of trying. After twenty-something years, however, she gave up trying to stamp it down. It was part of who she was and there was no changing that. So when she babbled about inappropriate things, she quickly moved on.

She sometimes gave away more information than intended, and she couldn’t control that. But Felicity Smoak knew that, no matter what, she would never babble out how she feels about Oliver Queen.

Those were the only words that would never escape her lips. She couldn’t afford to voice them. The repercussions were too severe. Her feelings for him were a tightly kept secret that even her mouth shied away from giving voice to. She tried not to think about her emotions towards him. Often it was easy, because she was caught up in her day work and her night job. But whenever she had a free moment to think… Gosh, that was when the thoughts came flooding in. Sometimes it would be in the dead of night while she lay in bed. Other times it was because she heard the – extremely sexy – sounds of him working out behind her. But most of the time… Most of the time, it was when Oliver put his hand on her shoulder, or cupped her elbow, or squeezed her arm. It was those touches that made her feelings slam back up to the surface, demanding attention, yearning to feel his arms around her small frame.

But she couldn’t tell him any of that. She refused to.

Because while she loved Oliver Queen with every fiber of her being, while she dreamed of him and fantasized about him and admired him from afar, while her feelings kept getting deeper and more serious… Oliver didn’t love her back. He never would. She just wasn’t the kind of girl that he would ever love.

Oh, Felicity was smart and beautiful and capable. She was strong in her own right, and an asset to the team. She knew that. But she still wasn’t the love of Oliver Queen’s life. And that was okay. Because he would never know that he was the love of hers.

***

Felicity liked a happy ending as much as the next girl, so she would like to say that Oliver suddenly realized he saw her as more than a friend and confessed as such. She would like to say that he reciprocated her feelings and that they ended up together, partners in every sense of the word.

But this story didn’t have a happy ending. Those things never happened. And so Felicity and Oliver remained partners in only the platonic sense.

Felicity acted normal, but she silently grieved for the future she wanted but could never have.

***

They say every person has a defining moment. An incident which shows you a crossroads, and you have to pick one. And your choice will define the rest of your existence.

Some people’s moment was career-related, some family-related, some all about self-discovery. But for Felicity… Her moment was her standing outside Oliver Queen’s hotel room. Her moment was her deciding what to do. And so when she walked away, she made a choice, a choice to back off, to stay silent about her feelings, to give him space. Felicity made a choice. She chose a path on that crossroad.

Felicity would like to deny it, but the “ _what ifs”_ haunted her for a very long time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I’m so sorry about that. I was definitely planning to take this one-shot in a happy direction, but… That didn’t happen. I felt like Felicity’s mindset after the Russia incident was not befitting a happy ending so… I’ve offered you a healthy dose of angst. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
